To say that the clans of Alba were less than pleased with the attack on their king was something of an understatement. For all that they griped and undermined the man, the moment that he was attacked they treated it as a personal slight. And for all they quarreled over petty differences and ancient offenses, they would stand united against a common enemy.
If they could agree who the enemy was, that is.
“He's still alive?” Ragnar asked no one in particular in the room. They had been relocated from the keep to an estate outside of the city. Though, calling it an estate would have been a touch generous even if it wasn't functionally a prison, albeit one guarded by five hundred of his personal guards. No accusations had been spoken out loud, but they had absolutely been thought.
“For now,” Magnus answered. “It struck him in the back, and it seems like it struck a lung.”
“Bad placement,” Harald remarked. “But survivable.”
A wound like that entirely depended on the strength of the man who was wounded, the skills of the doctor, and the will of the gods. King Causantín seemed like a hale man, but the clans had refused any offer of using their physicians to help treat the king. There was another factor at play as well, “He's fading unusually fast from the sounds of it.”
“Poison?” Magnus prompted, and Ragnar shrugged. “If they were going to use poison, why not slip something into his drink? Why wait until there were so many people around?”
“Probably because they wanted to use the people as a cover,” Harald guessed with a shrug of his shoulders, but he raised a fair theory.
“Have the dogs found a scent?” Ragnar asked, earning a cocked eyebrow from Harald, as if to say ‘How would I know?’ Ragnar sighed, scratching at his cheek and tossing himself onto the straw bed tucked in the corner of the farm house. “Ove will know. I suppose we have to wait until he returns.”
Ove was currently with the clans, trying to smooth over any ruffled feathers and to see if there was still a way that they could get what they came for -- an alliance. He certainly had a task in front of him. Ragnar imagined that the near assassination of their king would complicate things, especially if King Causantín died after the fact. His heir was a young boy, so a conclave would likely happen to choose the next king amongst the clans.
“King Causantín, King Ecgfrith, King Æthelred… a lot of kings get assassinated on this island,” Magnus said. “A response to our arrival, or something else?”
“I doubt that it's Charlemagne. A more unified Britannia is one that can resist us better. It wouldn't be in his interests to cause chaos for us to exploit,” Ragnar voiced his thoughts before he glanced at Magnus. “King Ecbert?”
“Maybe,” Magnus offered a shrug. “Charlemagne intends to use him as a meatshield, and Ecbert intends to use that support to make a play for the entirety of Britannia?”
“Does it matter?” Harald cut in with a frown. “We don't have any proof. Right now, half of the clans are convinced that we tried to kill their king and the other half only doubt it. Blaming some petty king in the South only makes it look like we're shirking blame.” Another fair point by Harald.
“So the only way to clear our name would be to find the culprit?” Ragnar mused, his lips thinning at the thought. Something that would be a little difficult given that they were ‘strongly encouraged to remain in the estate for their own safety.’ In other words, the clans wanted them where they could see them.
Harald grunted from across the room but there was a long lull in the conversation before he broke it. “We don't have to bother with clearing our name.” That made both Ragnar and Magnus look at him, so he continued. “When the king dies, there is going to be a succession crisis. We've started making some inroads with the clans… We could commit. All the way.”
“A coup?” Ragnar uttered, sitting up and casting a nervous glance around the room. If anyone managed to overheard them, then they managed to get through five hundred of their bodyguards, so it wasn't a real concern but the mere thought made him nervous. “That…”
It was doable. Probably. It'd be messy. Very messy. There wasn't a possibility that Alba would be able to commit any forces to the inevitable battle against Ecbert, but that wasn't strictly a concern. The real issue was…
“We haven't received word from Father,” Magnus pointed out. And they weren't likely to with the assassination. “I don't know what he would want us to do here. Beyond maybe just leaving entirely.”
It was possible. Probable, even. Father had sent them to negotiate an alliance, and it was made quickly apparent that there were significant forces at play here when they found that a pair of Paladins had been waiting for them. If Father had known about them, then he probably wouldn't have sent them in the first place.
‘Would this be a failure, then? Would he be dissapointed?’ Would Father be relieved that they were smart enough to quit while they were ahead, or unhappy that they had not persevered, overcame the dangers, and succeeded despite the odds? Because Father always did. Either by force or cleverness, he always managed to succeed in the end. Was this another test for them to prove their worthiness? That they were their father's sons? If not by Father, then perhaps by the gods?
“... I don't know what he would want us to do either,” Ragnar admitted. “But… I… don't want to disappoint him.”
“... Yeah,” Magnus sighed in agreement.
Father cast a long shadow, and he fully expected all of his children to surpass him. If not in every way, then at least in some -- be it as a warrior, a diplomat, a merchant, or as the Allvaldr. Ragnar had spent the entirety of his life trying to live up to that expectation. Father never failed to tell them that he was proud of them, but that wasn't the expectation that Ragnar had placed on himself. Father would sometimes get a look in his eyes when one of them did something that blew past his already high expectations. A gleam that went deeper than pride and became a genuine joy of what Ragnar's siblings were capable of.
“The way I see it, we have two real choices,” Ragnar started, his voice low and even. “We can cut our losses in Alba and wait for an alliance once the dust settles… or we could follow up on the offer Lucas presented to us -- making him king in exchange for vassalage. Anything in the middle isn't worth the risk.”
Magnus wavered, tapping his finger on his crossed arms. A habit that Aunt Jill hadn't managed to break him out of when Magnus was thinking hard about something. “They won't just bend the knee for a crown. The clans would need to be broken before they really accept such a thing.”
“Which gives us leverage over whoever we make king,” Ragnar pointed out. As he did so, he realized which path he was favoring. With a glance at Magnus, he saw that his brother was leaning the same way. “It'll require a lot of resources. Maybe a dedicated force, but we could weaken him enough to be dependent on Father but strong enough that we won't need to worry about him being usurped.”
‘It really is too much, isn't it?’ The thought came unprompted when they shared a glance, realizing that they were committing themselves to a dangerous path. A path that Father may not wish them to tread and one that wouldn't be without its consequences. ‘Overthrowing a kingdom just for one man's approval?’
There were other reasons, of course. Long term plans and advantages that would echo out over decades if not centuries. But…
Ragnar would be a liar if he said if any one of them was the reason he decided to walk the more dangerous path.
…
The preparation for what amounted to a coup was slow at first. Like them, most of the clans were ‘encouraged’ to remain indoors for their own safety. Though, to an admittedly less rigorous standard. Messengers had to run back and forth between the clans, and as the night wore on, several things became clear.
King Causantín wasn't long for the world. That, and whoever shot him in the back had been part of the King's own party as the hounds had tracked the scent that far before it was lost.
Ragnar had a theory on who it could be, but he didn't have enough proof to make an accusation one way or another.
Regardless of that, most of the groundwork for a coup had already been laid. It was only an issue of convincing those that had laid the foundations to commit to the act, even if they had to rush it.
Which was how Ragnar found himself sneaking out under the cover of darkness late into the night. Yet, it was impossible to completely obscure his arrival to Lucas' clan. Even if their departure was missed, someone would see or say something that would tip off his arrival. For that reason, Magnus and Harald would both approach other clans under the guise of trying to coax them into supporting the alliance even if the king died. Nothing that wouldn't already be expected of them.
After all, tonight was a night for plotting.
Ragnar arrived at a clan building within the city, the guards at the back entrance taking note of his two guards, but Ragnar pushed back his hood to confirm his identity. They said something in Gaelic, but stepped aside to let him enter what looked to be a pantry. He saw kegs lining shelves, and meats hanging on hooks to dry alongside bundles of herbs. The door shut behind him, and Ragnar stepped forward before the other person in the room revealed themselves.
They weren't who Ragnar expected to meet.
“It's not a trap,” Maeve remarked, stepping out of the shadows. Then she blinked, tilting her head ever so slightly, “Ah, well, I suppose it is a trap, just not the kind you were prepared for.”
Well, that wasn't exactly a promising start. Ragnar raised an eyebrow, inviting an explanation.
Maeve offered a sly smile, “We've been unchaperoned for five entire seconds. As far as anyone will care, you've gone and made off with my virtue. After all, how can a girl like me ever resist the charms of a noble prince?” She punctuated the sarcastic explanation with a dry laugh.
Ah. So, it's like that then? “I'll take that as a sign that your clan doesn't intend to uphold the betrothal?”
“Never a chance of that,” Maeve confirmed with a nod of her head, taking a seat on a barrel and gesturing for him to sit on a crate across from her. “I don't dislike the poor boy, or anything like that. He's a sweet enough child. Brings me flowers sometimes,” she mused softly, her smile taking a sad twist. “But we were never going to be married. If not this excuse to break off the betrothal, then it would have been another. The betrothal was just a way to buy a truce so that both sides could gain their strength.”
Ragnar hummed, unsurprised by the information. “And I was a convenient excuse. A prince from a powerful empire, so reprisals are unlikely. It also puts you in a position to strong arm me for a marriage to solidify terms.”
“Exactly right,” Maeve confirmed openly and honestly. “There is a bit more to it than that, of course. Your father scares the hells right out of most of the clans, you know? We've been fighting against the Southerners for as long as there have been people on this island, and your father is walking over them like they're dirt under his heels. They'll bluster and beat their chest talking about gods and God, but the truth of it is, they know that if you really wanted our lands you could just take them.”
She offered a theatrical shrug of her shoulders, “So, a son of the great Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed stealing away the virtue of a good and honest woman like myself is an indication of favor. Since all you boys prefer doing your thinking with your bollocks rather than your brains.”
“Good and honest?” Ragnar echoed with a tilt of his head, and the smile he got at that felt a bit more genuine.
“‘Course, marriage would be a stronger indication,” Maeve continued as if he hadn't said anything. “Nothing manages to bind interests together like a few words, a ceremony, and smashing pissers.”
“You forgot to add eloquent to your descriptors,” Ragnar remarked.
“If one praises their virtues too much, they risk being seen as unvirtuous,” Maeve replied, as if it should have been obvious. “But the point is, with a strong enough indication, all that chest beating and bleating like a bunch of angry goats becomes just that.”
Marriage was something that felt so very distant yet had managed to loom over Ragnar's thoughts, especially of late. Father told them that he would try to make such a match for them where even if they couldn't find love, they could at least find happiness with their spouse. However, as princes and princesses, their marriages were less unions and more of a means to seal a contract between parties. Maeve put it best -- few things were more iron clad at the negotiation table than a marriage.
Promises and betrothals could be broken, but marriage and the intermingling of blood were final. By becoming kin, interests merged, assets were coalesced, and foes became mutual.
Ragnar never once thought that he would marry for love. He was prepared to marry someone he detested, even. So long as it served Father and the realm. That was his duty as a prince and as a loyal son.
“That won't serve my father's interests," Ragnar replied, making Maeve's gaze sharpen just a touch. “My father prefers stability. The fact of the matter is that, it does not benefit the empire if another party, such as the Romans, Abbasids, or even the Khazars are able to undermine a king in the way that our arrival has managed to.”
Maeve made a show of thinking about it, “I suppose that makes sense.” She acknowledged, leaving the door open for elaboration.
“When my father was forging the empire, he did so by creating kingdoms. Some smaller than Alba, while others were larger. The two exceptions to this was Norway, who offered my mother to him as a bride, and Saxony, where King Widukind conducted a purge of the problematic elements within his kingdom, so that Father could wipe the slate clean before he abdicated."
“Then why call him King Windukind?” Maeve questioned sharply, for what purpose, Ragnar could only guess at.
“Because he is a true king, and a man my father holds in the highest respect. He now serves as an adviser for my family,” he answered. “The point being, with the power of the clans, it would be more in our interest to go with the latter example. And the easiest way to do that is if their chest beating and bleating became action so that we’d be better able to break their power.”
Maeve did something unexpected as she kicked her legs back and forth against the barrel. She smiled. “Including my own? After all, a king with too much power on this far away island would be just as problematic as one with too little. Few things give someone a fatter head than a crown, after all. With enough resources and influence, some crowned idiot could sway the whole island in rebelling, and I imagine that would be quite the pain for the Allvaldr across the North Sea. Raising armies is expensive and time consuming, with one defeat could mean that the islands simply wouldn't be worth the cost to retake.”
She was building up to something. Ragnar wasn't sure what yet, but her logic was sound. He just wasn't sure how honest he wanted to be.
By all accounts, she was right. To achieve what Ragnar wanted, then her clan's power would need to be curtailed alongside the others. Their powerbase would be wider, but shallower. But, he imagined that would be a hard negotiation point to sell them on. So, he had mostly been planning to undercut them in secret and by the time they realized, it would be far too late.
“The shape of my father's plans for Britannia are still undecided,” Ragnar replied instead of commenting on her observations. “As you say, securing the islands will be a significant investment. There is no promise that future Allvaldrs will be as powerful as my father. In all likelihood, they won't be. So, in times of strife, it could be relatively easy for the islands to feel comfortable in rebelling.”
Father, of course, had plans for such a thing. The North Sea wasn't a large one, but it was dangerous. Without warning, the skies could turn from cloudless to a storm, and the calm seas could rage until they dropped waves the size of mountains on unlucky ships. To secure the islands, they would need to project their presence upon them, and to do that…
Well, that wasn't important at the moment.
“Hmmm?” Maeve hummed, and he had the feeling she saw through his sidestepping of her observation. “So he might just decide to not bother with us at all? That'd be disappointing."
That wasn't the response he expected, "Disappointing?"
“I rather liked the image you painted for me,” Maeve admitted and he felt like she was being honest, there. “Alba isn't a rich land. Not like the South is. What isn't mountains are hills. There's not much farmland, so we breed goats and sheep, and that keeps the land that we do have used for grazing. There probably isn't a single even road in the kingdom, and while the land isn't lacking in other resources, no clan alone has the resources to properly exploit them… and they're too proud to ask for help.”
A loud dramatic sigh escaped her, “Pride really is a stupid thing. So many would rather choke on it than swallow it.” Then her gaze settled heavily on Ragnar, “So, I wanted to see what the kingdom could become without all those unnecessary things getting in the way.”
Ragnar felt a shift in the air that he couldn't quite understand. This started to feel less like a negotiation between his empire and her clan, and instead it felt… personal.
“There is another way to secure your grip on these islands," Maeve continued after a beat, leaning forward. “Hey, prince… what do you think about becoming king?”
“What?” He blurted, so caught off guard that the reaction slipped out. At it, Maeve gave him a vaguely disappointed look with a shake of her head.
“You didn’t even consider it? That’s no good. You’re a prince! You should have a little more ambition,” she scolded him. “It wouldn’t even be that difficult to pull off. You marry me, and one or two other girls from the other major clans. The rest will rebel, of course -- you’re a no good dastardly foreigner who covets the crown. But, with your father’s resources and the loyal clans, their defeat would be all but certain. Strip them of their lands and resources, and you have the means of establishing your own base of power in Alba.”
‘This girl…
Maeve raised a finger, as if she were ticking off points. “With a loyal son and prince of the realm in charge of Alba, your father wouldn’t need to worry about who controls ‘Britannia.’ And with you here, whoever else he places in charge of the various kingdoms he carves out, the presence of the royal family will be felt, reducing their willingness to act independently. Additionally, outright seizing the kingdoms means that you have a base of power for your war against the Romans when that finally starts.”
… is a little too smart.’
Ragnar wasn’t dull. He absorbed everything that his tutors had to teach him. He picked up languages with ease. He wasn’t sure how smart he really was, but he did know that he was smart. Sometimes he even learned things faster than Father did. But this felt different.
“I’m sure your brother would take issue with that,” Ragnar deflected… and at her smile, he was struck with a revelation. “He has no idea that I’m here, does he?”
“I love my brother,” Maeve said, and that sounded honest, at least. “But he is a really oblivious guy. It’s a lot of work covering up his shortcomings as it is, but as a king? That’d kill him.” She let out a disappointed sigh with a shake of her head, “He’s exactly the kind of guy that’d let all the power go straight to his head. The Alba that I want to see can’t be real under his rule.”
His thoughts must have shown on his face because she pointed a finger at him, “Don’t go thinking that I’d betray my family on a whim. I’d do anything for them. It’s just that in this case, what’s best for them is not getting what they want.”
“So, in this ideal Alba, I’m king, you are my queen, and Alba becomes a vassal to the Scandinavian Empire?” He voiced, trying to tell if this was simple ambition or something greater. Or worse. He hadn’t even considered the possibility. It could work. Father was both the Allvaldr and King of Denmark. Should he be formally selected as Heir, then Alba would be his personal fief to give him a power base to work with.
Every point she made rang with a note of reason and truth. It wasn’t a path forward he would have considered, but it was one. Especially when it completely removed the negatives of having to deal with a puppet king whose loyalty was dubious at best.
“That about sums it up,” Maeve agreed with a nod, lowering her accusing finger, her gaze searching him for hints of his answer.
“Why?” He asked, summarizing all of his questions in a single word. He wasn’t strictly against the idea. It felt like something that his father would approve of. Be proud of. But all of it hinged on Maeve, a girl whom he spoken to all of two times, including this one. And all he really knew about her was that she was dangerous.
Dangerous in the same kind of way that Aunt Morrigan was.
“Because I want more,” Maeve answered so bluntly that it couldn’t be anything other than true. “More for myself. For my family. For Alba.” As she spoke, she stood up and took a step forward, looming over Ragnar before leaning in so close that their faces were practically touching. “So? How about it? Want to get married?”
It was exactly that moment that Ragnar began to suspect that there was something deeply wrong with him. Bradamante was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen, and she’d nearly killed him. Maeve, however, scared him on a level that felt instinctual, and in that moment, she seemed every bit as beautiful.
“Ah… if you wouldn’t mind, I suppose.”
He just needed to figure out how he was going to tell Father about all of this.